Serial communications are used in a wide variety of communication and computing devices and systems. Serial communications typically involve communicating data serially over a single link or over multiple links. One example of a serial device is a Low Voltage Differential Signalling or “LVDS” device. LVDS devices are serial devices designed to communicate over twisted-pair cables and are often used to form high-speed computer networks and buses. LVDS transmitters typically transmit two voltage signals (one over each twisted-pair cable), and LVDS receivers typically compare the voltage signals and determine differences between the voltage signals. The determined differences are used to recover information represented using these differential voltage signals.
Conventional LVDS and other serial devices may suffer from a wide variety of problems. For example, conventional serial devices often have very bad power supply rejection ratios (PSRRs), consume a large amount of power, and have wide variations in gain and bandwidth across their common mode voltage ranges. Also, conventional serial devices often have insufficient abilities to detect and ignore received signals falling within specified threshold limits, which can lead to excess noise and power consumption.